45 RPM – (Song) – The Alarm Archive

45 RPM is a song by written by Mike Peters and Steve Grantley which first appeared on The Alarm MMIII In The Poppy Fields Bond : Two : The Normal Rules Do Not Apply. It then appeared as a single release in 2004 under the name of The Poppy Fields. The single was released on 7-inch vinyl and two CD editions and was billed as an advance release from the album In the Poppy Fields, The song reached No. 28 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 6 on the UK Independent Singles Chart in 2004.

The single was released under the pseudonym band name The Poppy Fields in 2004 with an accompanying video. BBC Radio 1 DJ’s such as Mark and Lard and Steve Lamacq were taken in by the stunt. Music reviewers were raving about the Poppy Fields based on them being a bunch of punky teenagers. Record company executives desperately wanted to find out more about the unheard band.

Lead singer Mike Peters explained the decision to market the song under the Poppy Fields: “We thought we had nothing to lose. If we had put out a single by The Alarm, there would have been a negative feeling, because whether record company executives and music journalists admit it or not image is rated far higher than the music’ nowadays. I hope we’ve proved a valid point. Why must new music necessarily have to be made by new bands. I’m 44 but I’m writing new songs as fresh and as vibrant as anything I’ve ever done. In Britain we’re too quick to want to find the next big thing. If you’re over 35 you’re dismissed as over-the-hill.

TheAlarm.com – 23rd February 2004
As most of you probably know the news of 45 RPM at Number 28 in the charts has caused an immense amount of media interest, so much so that the news is spreading further afield day by day.
The story began to break last Thursday when the MPO office received a call from the BBC website wanting to interview Mike. From there, Mike was interviewed by phone from Germany for Matthew Banisters’ 5 Live show. By Friday all hell broke loose and as Mike landed at Manchester Airport, fresh from mid-German tour he spent all day en route to Cardiff (where he was due to collect The Music Academy Wales Award for Outstanding Contribution to Welsh Music) on the phone being interviewed for Sky News, Channel 4 news, Radio 4’s Frontline and Broadcasting House, National Syndicated Radio, the Rolling Stone, BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Scotland and even after the Welsh Music Awards that night for Talk Sport (much to Mike’s delight!)
Just arriving in time, Mike was given a fitting standing Ovation at the Welsh Music Awards in Cardiff. A special video of congratulations had been sent by Radio 1 DJ’s Mark and Lard and a 3 minute film charting 20 years of Mike Peters music history was shown on a huge screen.
The next day, the 45RPM story was all over the national UK Newspapers with fantastic features and column space afforded to the 45 rpm story in The Guardian, Daily Mail, Sun, Mirror, Telegraph, Independent etc. By Sunday, news had spread to America and even the LA Times and CBS were now keen to cover the story. By Sunday Mike was back on a plane and playing to a sell out crowd in Cologne. CBS sent a special crew to interview Mike and film the show. CBS aired a 2+ minute segment on the CBS Evening News With Dan Rather across USA 23rd Feb.
It aint over til it’s over as Mike flies back in to the UK this week to pre-record Never Mind The Buzzcocks as one of the panellists and on the morning of Mike’s birthday (Feb 25th) will appear on BBC Breakfast TV nationwide at approx 8.55am (in the UK).
All of this exciting 45 RPM whirlwind couldn’t have happened without your help so a big thank you to all. Hope you are enjoying The Alarm being the subject of a national debate.

Alarm bells are raised in counterfeit band scam Feb 20 2004 By Roisin Gad El Rab, Chester Chronicle
A Chester rock band has found itself caught up in a scam which has fooled the music industry.
What started out as a bit of a joke and a favour for a friend has escalated into a full-scale campaign to get 1980s band The Alarm back into the charts – using the faces of city group The Wayriders to do it.
This week 45 RPM broke into the UK Top 40 at number 28 under the guise of imaginary band The Poppy Fields. It is a punk single performed by The Alarm but mimed by young Chester band The Wayriders. Believing it to be almost impossible to be taken seriously as a musician over the age of 35, Alarm front man Mike Peters devised the scam in order to prove a point.
Lead singer of The Wayriders Andy Morgan explained how they came to pose as The Poppy Fields on the band’s video. ‘What has been done is all quite elaborate,’ he said. ‘We had never actually met Mike Peters but we knew his manager Liam. He asked us last November if we wanted to come down to film a video the next day. We filmed it in NEWI in Wrexham. It was just a bit of a laugh for us.’ He said The Alarm filmed a video of their own before getting The Wayriders to mime to their song. ‘We just learned the lyrics on the spot,’ said Andy, who lives in Huntington. ‘We were listening to it and trying to figure it out on the guitar and stuff.’ Drummer Sean Howe made quite an impact. Andy said: ‘Our drummer is fantastic, he just watched them play. We were all just messing about but he sat to the side and worked out exactly how they did it. They did one take of just the drums and he got it absolutely beat perfect – at the end all the crew and the band gave him a round of applause.’ The Wayriders, who have been going for four years, heard little else about The Poppy Fields and were unaware of the hype that has been growing since last year. ‘We basically went away from it and didn’t think anything of it,’ said Andy on finishing the shoot. They have since learned their video was sent out to accompany Press releases describing ‘a new young band from Chester who cite their influences as The Pistols, The Clash, The Buzzcocks, Rancid, Less Than Jake and Good Charlotte’. ‘We couldn’t quite believe it,’ said Andy. ‘On The Alarm’s website they have been talking about this new band from Chester and we have been posing as the new band but we didn’t know.’
The twist in the story is that The Wayriders have long felt they face a similar dilemma to Mike Peters. ‘He’s talking about how no one gets taken seriously at his age but we have the same thing,’ said Andy. ‘We are a little too young for our scene – we played about 100 gigs last year, travelling around in a transit van and headlined the majority of the shows last year. ‘Other bands in our scene that are doing well are about five years older than us. We are just starting to break through now.’ 45RPM managed to fool Radio 1 DJs Mark and Lard and Steve Lamacq, as well as critics who have raved about the single.
Explaining the ruse on The Alarm website, Mike Peters said: ‘We thought we’d send the demo to a few radio stations, but made out it was a new band so we could get some honest feedback. ‘The reaction was so good that we were blown away! However, we were sure the reaction wouldn’t have been so positive if they knew it was The Alarm. ‘We noticed a lot of bands suffered when they attempt comebacks because people don’t believe they can ever be as good as they were. We wanted to make sure we are judged on the strength of the music and not by our old hairstyles!’ The Wayriders are Andy Morgan, Hugh Jones, Sean Howe, Paul Bunker, Tom Schwartz with Tom Owen and Ellie Plasted.

Article originally puplished by The Philadelphia Inquirer March 2004
Even if it never sells a million copies, “45 RPM,” the debut single from a band called The Poppy Fields, deserves a place in the history books – as a caustic commentary on the youth-worshiping state of current rock-and-roll. The song, which last week reached No. 28 on a U.K. singles chart, was written and sung by Mike Peters, guitarist and lead singer of veteran Welsh rockers the Alarm. But in the accompanying video, 45-year-old Peters and his band mates, who have been making records since 1983, are nowhere to be seen. In their place are four strapping teenage post-punks with a talent for lip-syncing.
The Alarm hired the stand-ins, Peters explains, to circumvent a problem that has plagued them and other “heritage” rock artists. Though they never stopped recording new music and have toured steadily, “we kept hearing we’re too old, that the Alarm isn’t doing the rock-and-roll that’s happening now,” Peters said the other day, barely able to contain his glee over the band’s first radio success in 15 years. “Guess this proves otherwise.” The ruse started in the fall, shortly after Peters wrote “45 RPM,” while the Alarm was on a U.S. concert tour. “We knew it was good when we finished it,” said Peters, on the road with the band in England. (They’ll play Philadelphia’s Hard Rock Cafe on March 24.) “And we knew if we’d taken it to [rock] radio as an Alarm record, it wouldn’t have a chance… . “So we sent the record out with no identifying marks, just a white label, as The Poppy Fields. We felt we had nothing to lose; it seemed to be the only way we could get a fair hearing.”
Several influential British radio DJs began spinning “45 RPM,” which has a ringing chorus and a driving, anthemic pulse reminiscent of such fervent, idealistic ’80s Alarm singles as “Sixty Eight Guns” and “Strength.” As interest grew, it became clear that the song could make it into regular rotation. But that meant the Alarm would need to assemble the other pieces of the promotional puzzle, including a video. That’s when the subterfuge began. The Alarm invented the fictitious Poppy Fields and wrote a faux bio for what they envisioned as a “young, credible punk band.” The young men miming on the “45 RPM” video are an unknown English act called the Wayriders. Still, Peters says, the Alarm made no great attempt to hide the fact that they were the Poppyfields’ puppetmasters. Fans of the Alarm were alerted to the single on the band’s Web site. The band even took out a Poppyfields ad in the British music weekly NME and placed the Alarm logo near the title “45 RPM.”
Within a few weeks of the video’s debut, a DJ confirmed the source of the Poppy Fields’ music. “To be honest, I can’t believe we got away with it for that long,” Peters marvels. “We’ve been doing a series of Internet-only albums called In the Poppy Fields for the last few years, so that was a tip-off. Then there were the adverts. Really, most of the hard-core Alarm fans knew… . “What mattered most to us was that, before people figured it out, before the story became how we’d duped the British music industry, people got behind the song on its merits.”
Mike Bacon, modern-rock director for the radio-industry publication FMQB, based in Cherry Hill, says the Alarm was clever to repackage itself, because many young bands, such as British phenoms the Darkness, are currently appropriating elements of ’80s rock. “It’s more fashionable to be a young band that sounds like an older band than to be an older band coming back from the grave.”
Peters characterizes himself as a disciple of rock-and-roll who loved American radio as a young musician because it offered so much diversity. He’s deeply disillusioned by how corporate broadcasting has become worldwide, and how hard it is for a veteran band to overcome the assumption that it’s over the hill. It’s harder for a rock act than a pop band to stay viable, he believes. “In today’s climate, U2 would have been dropped on the second record,” Peters laments. “It’s like everyone’s obsessed with new music, and they assume it has to come from new artists,” particularly in Britain, where the charts seem to be populated by different acts every week. “The audience is starting to see through that; I think people instinctively know that the music they’re hearing… isn’t as honestly presented as it once was. Gone are the days when a DJ can play a single, turn it over and play the B-side, and discover a song like ‘Maggie May.’ It’s all analyzed by focus groups and determined by dealmakers. It’s not about discoveries anymore – that’s why people who would be buying music are walking away.”
As for the Alarm, the band has been soliciting input from fans who have heard the In the Poppy Fields CDs, and soon plans to self-release a disc of the most popular selections. More tours are in the works, and whether or not “45 RPM” becomes a worldwide smash, Peters is determined to keep making music.
“I don’t subscribe to the prevalent view that you get worse as you get older,” he says. “Look at the great novelists: Some people don’t find a voice until they’ve been doing this for a long time… . I feel like we’re just starting to get to the best songs that have ever been made in the name of the Alarm.”

2003 Foel Studios, Llanfair Caereinion, Wales recording

Musicians & Credits
Mike Peters – Vocals, Electric Guitar
James Stevenson – Electric Guitar, Backing vocals
Craig Adams – Bass Guitar, Backing vocals
Steve Grantley – Drums, Backing vocals

Recorded at Foel Studios, Llanfair Caereinion, Wales
Recorded and engineered by
Produced by
Mixed by
Mastered by

Alternative studio / session / podcast recordings
2017 Parr Studios Liverpool, Vans Warped Tour recording

(v) 10th June 2017. The Alarm – Vans Warped Tour Medley [1982-2017]
Running length
Musicians & Credits
Mike Peters – Lead Vocals, Electo-Acoustic Guitar
James Stevenson – Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals
Steve “Smiley” Barnard – Drums, Backing Vocals
J.J. Haggar – Backing Vocals
Lucas Labrow – Backing Vocals
Andy Labrow – Backing Vocals
Produced by Mike Peters
Engineered and mixed by Tony Draper

Album appearances and discography of studio recordings

All the following are Worldwide releases except where stated

(v) 25th February 2021 : The Alarm – Vans Warped Tour Medley [1982-2017]
Released on CD by The Twenty First Century Recording Company, catalogue number 21C127
2017 Parr Studios Liverpool, Vans Warped Tour recordin